Spread the love
It was mid-April 2017. The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), had announced the date of its elections. On the 17th of May, 2017, new Executive Officers must be elected. The key position to be contested was the Union Chairman.
Within days of its announcement, three major candidates had emerged, all spoiled for war:
1. Olorunleke Yomi, the immediate elder brother of Olorunleke Moses, Kabba/Bunu LGA Administrator
2. Orisase Bamidele
3. Tolorunse Gbenga
Many of the observers had concluded that the Chairmanship slot was for Olorunleke Yomi to grab for obvious reasons: he has his brother as the Administrator of the Local Government who in turn has the Local Government money to spend without restriction. Against this backdrop, many of the observers called on Orisase Bamidele and other contestants to step down because it was a no-contest in their opinion and more so because it was estimated to be a complete waste of scarce resources and efforts. Orisase Bamidele is a school teacher who had not been paid his salaries in the last 12 months, so many wondered where he would get the money to contest an election against a serving LGA Administrator! Thus, the Olorunlekes had the Local Government money to spend, while Orisase Bamidele, like other contestants, had their good wills and their guts as their currencies.
True to the forecast, the Olorunlekes pounced on the Treasury of the Local Government in a spend spree that had not been seen in recent times!! Not taking into account the humongous amount of money spent in the weeks before the election, on Election Day, the 17th of May, 2017, Moses Olorunleke, the Kabba/Bunu LGA Administrator, spent N3,000,000 (three million naira) to prosecute the NUT election for his brother. But as Moses and his brother planned to win the election by outspending everyone else, so also the people planned never to sell their conscience for money. All attempts to rig the process was blocked by the people themselves. In the end, the results came calling:
1. Orisase Bamidele – 121 votes (Winner)
2. Olorunleke Yomi – 88 votes (Moses’ brother)
3. Tolorunse Gbenga – 67 votes
Kabba metropolis is rife with the news of the outcome of the NUT election as many people are poised to use this election as a foretaste of what is to be expected in future elections in Kabba/Bunu LGA.
On the whole, Moses Olorunleke seems to have earned more enemies than friends and neither the power of incumbency nor the unlimited access to the local government Treasury could have saved him. In any case, we all have lessons to learn from this political defeat for the nearest future.
– Ogbeni Williams Oluwadare Babalola Jnr. writes from Kabba.
Spread the love
